


The Gardener

by futurelounging



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-04 10:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14591499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futurelounging/pseuds/futurelounging
Summary: Isobel Dunsany is facing her family's requirement that she marry when she meets a mysterious gardener .





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a multi-chapter work inspired by the Outlander Rarepairs Challenge initiated by FaerieChild.

**Prologue**

“Don’t look at them when you’re giving direction, Isobel. It’s too familiar and they’ll lose respect for your position. If you look at _them_ as you would look at _me_ , how will they understand their station? You’ll just confuse them.”

Geneva adjusted the pin holding her hat in place and cocked a brow at her younger sister, waiting for a response.

“I don’t think anyone working on our estate is likely to forget their place. Certainly not with you around to remind them.” Isobel mumbled the second part of her statement and turned away from her sister whose attention had become diverted. Geneva had a habit of seeming engaged in a conversation until the moment it began to deviate from her opinion.

It wasn’t merely Isobel’s attempts at debate that distracted her this time. Mackenzie was leading a horse to the stable and, as usual, Geneva contrived a reason to bee-line to him. Her sister, a vision of beauty and the effortless posture of her class, had become, in Isobel’s mind, a paragon of femininity. Geneva possessed the ability to turn her eyes up in the corners to convey all manner of disapproval, intrigue, and seduction. Isobel’s eyes turned down at the corners, no matter her attempts to shape them otherwise. And she thought it left her looking perpetually sad.

She did not dislike herself. It was nothing so tragic as that. But she felt as if she was missing something essential that would turn the eyes of the world to her. For even at this young age she could see the invisible shackles of her sex. The future devoid of choice. Though she could not articulate it, her older sister understood something about her power. That she might turn men to her and confuse their ambitions.

Isobel watched her sister stalk her prey. She never understood how she managed to get Mackenzie, of all the men on the estate. He seemed too distant, like his mind lived in another place. His thoughts always drawn away from his present circumstances.

She liked him. He did not flatter or flee. He possessed a charm rare to most men, save perhaps John. But if he fell to Geneva he must be no different than any other. Deep down he was as weak as the rest, unable to steer his own ship in the turbulent seas of women.

Geneva’s death tore into her spirit in a way her brother’s hadn’t. It was perhaps her age, the specter of marriage looming before her, even more now as the remaining offspring. She entertained thoughts of God slowly taking her parents’ children for some unknowable offense. Would she fall from a horse and break her neck? Be consumed by an illness, invisible and sudden?

Isobel aged a decade in two years, stripping away the petty grievances of youth. Her beautiful nephew, whose eyes were the piercing blue of his father’s, tugged at something in her heart. It wasn’t a maternal root, buried deep in her blood. Nor was it the purpose inherent in providing guidance to a child. It was possibility. Her sister’s life was decided and forfeit. Her brother’s stolen in warfare. But Willie, unaware of any tethers to his spirit, was all possibility. She cradled that possibility inside her own chest, protecting it from the devices of her station, and imagined herself a rare bird, hiding its colors on the underside of its wings, waiting to take flight.

The world of men and women, marriage and procreation, seemed foreign to Isobel. And she held that as a secret, uncertain of why she didn’t swoon over men or daydream of weddings or flutter her eyes at their glances. She felt locked out of the world, clinging to the outside, wishing she could let go.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

“Mother, I hardly...I was a child when last I visited them.” Isobel stuttered on the words, uncomfortably aware of how futile her excuses would sound. Not when her mother had settled into her matchmaking role.

“Isobel, you musn’t be so dramatic. It’s merely a visit. I simply wish for you to meet them. They are a charming family. Eloise is a dear old friend of mine and I’ve been remiss in tending to our friendship.”

“And? I suspect there must be more than your desire for me to be subjected to their charms.”

Her mother shook her head and sighed exasperatedly. “Their son has recently returned from a naval appointment and he is of an age to consider marriage. I cannot speak for him personally, but only ask that you come along and make his acquaintance.”

She felt it then. A crack in her chest, like lightning spreading its fingers across the sky. Her skin went numb as the forces outside her painted a new landscape with her figure permanent and still upon it. So, she would go. She had no choice. She would meet her fate and not be cowed by it.

The Wilberforce home was modest compared to the Dunsany estate, with an understated elegance. But appearances were only as strong as one’s will to believe in them. Would any perceive the enormous debt accrued by Isobel’s father in the whorled embroidery of their finest furniture? Or that her nephew’s fortune had become the delicate focus of all their efforts? Would the less ostentatious Wilberforce home dissuade assumptions of fortune? Would her own painted smile prove beautiful enough or would her obstinate heart crack the veneer?

They approached down a long drive lined with oaks, heavily shading the way until the home appeared before them. The drive circled to the door and Isobel and her mother craned their necks to view the elaborate gardens filled with flowers curving and swirling in colored patterns. It felt almost whimsical compared to their own carefully squared hedges.

Isobel stepped from the carriage onto the pea gravel drive, instinctively grabbing her hat as a gust of wind stole the breath of those attending the arrival. Mrs. Wilberforce dipped her head and looked up at Isobel with a warm smile. “Welcome, lovely Isobel. I am delighted you could join us.”

Eloise Wilberforce was plump and gregarious, an entirely welcoming presence who pulled her mother into an embrace before propriety could cause her to reconsider. That gesture chipped away at Isobel’s wall just a bit. These were not villains. She glanced back at Mackenzie as he directed the horses to the stables for tending during the visit. He noticed her look out of the corner of his eye and nodded at her, a look of sympathy upon his face. She smiled gratefully in return, strengthened by his gesture.

The home was warm, with walls of portraits and landscapes and flowers pressed between glass. “Do you know the artist of these works? They’re lovely.”

Mrs. Wilberforce stopped in the hall before Isobel and turned to her, beaming. “Oh yes. My eldest daughter, Olivia, painted them. She’s recently wed and I do miss watching her paint, but I’ve obtained guarantee that she will continue to supply us with her works. I would hardly have allowed her to wed if not for that.” A grin and a wink. Isobel wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but breathtaking gardens and art and wit were not it.

They settled in a sitting room and soon enjoyed cakes and tea and a thorough perusal of the Wilberforce collection of historical maps. Mr. Wilberforce, who was currently away on business, had made cartography his leisurely fixation. Isobel’s fingers traced the sepia-toned lines and tried to imagine the landscape outside these walls not carved and sculpted to please their modern aesthetic whims.

“Here he is! Robert!” Robert Wilberforce, finely appointed in his naval uniform, entered the room with precise steps and leaned down to kiss his mother’s flushed cheek. She was bursting with pride and anticipation of what she must surely view as a prenuptial formality. The thought made Isobel’s stomach constrict, causing brief worry that the cakes she’d consumed would not sit well unless she found a way to settle herself.

Robert was of medium build, similar in height to Lord John, but barrel-chested and possessing a roundness to his face that left no question to his lineage. His hair was combed back with precocious curls erupting from the ends. Isobel rose and drew a faint smile upon her lips as she dipped her head and focused on the brass buttons of his uniform. She felt the eyes of all in the room on her and waited for the blush to rise, but instead felt the absence of any stirring in her blood. This was the moment when her heart and eyes should flutter at the romantic prospects. But she felt nothing. And beneath her meager smile she swallowed tears that perhaps this absence was a fault. Was she, in fact, broken? Missing an integral component? Or had she been misled by literature telling her to expect something that was no more than a contrived fantasy to convince the sexes to join? Had all creatures in time pretended such feelings because it was expected of them?

“Would you join me for a walk around the grounds? The gardens are particularly lovely right now.” He extended an arm, expecting no refusal, and Isobel complied. Her hand wrapped around his arm and she felt her feet drifting over the floors, descending steps. She sighed in relief as her heels pressed into the soft ground, finally breathing, away from the expectant eyes of the mothers.

He seemed more human now in the sunlight illuminating the imperfections of his form and she felt at once brave enough to speak freely. “I did notice the beautiful flowers in the drive and feel rather envious of your gardener’s skills. You must be careful of who you invite or they might steal him away.”

Robert’s brows shot up, certainly not expecting the very first words from her mouth to be teasing barbs. In truth, she’d decided in the carriage, as it jostled over ruts and splashed through puddles from overnight rains, that if she must comply, then she would do so with the knowledge she had not hidden herself. That her words would be spoken as she willed. Robert, to his credit, did not recoil.

“We are indeed very fortunate. Our gardener died a few years ago and his son, who had worked with his father since he was a small lad, took his place. He has great vision and is responsible for the designs you noted out front. It’s a bit unusual, but my mother has never shied from such things. I’ll be certain word reaches him of your admiration.”

Robert took her introductory comment as license to expound upon all manner of mundanity and he carried the conversation with little concern for her response, which felt a small mercy to her. They continued walking and her mind drifted into the shadows of the trees and flowers, leaving just enough consciousness to “hm” and “indeed” as needed. As they weaved through flowering plum trees a courier approached, legs churning quickly with his hand extended, holding a letter. “Urgent, for you, sir.” Robert opened it and began reading, a crease deepening in his brow. “There’s a carriage waiting, sir,” the courier added.

Robert turned to Isobel, mouth pursed and downturned. “I apologize, but I must leave now. I am to return to my ship immediately. I’m so sorry to do this, but please know that it was lovely to meet you and I hope you will consider another visit when I return again.”

Relief flooded through her, followed quickly by guilt for feeling it, as he seemed a kind enough gentleman undeserving of her disinterest. “Of course. I’m sure we’ll visit again.” She had heard rumors of the war spreading to new fronts and felt a gnawing regret. She had been wallowing in her own predicament while he was cast into a world of violence from which he might never return.

Robert walked briskly away, absorbed once again in the note. The courier nodded at her.  “Shall I accompany you back to the house, Miss?”

“Oh. No, I should like to continue walking through the grounds a little longer. I’ll make my own way back shortly. Thank you.”

Alone. Her heartbeat slowed and she took a moment to examine her surroundings. A stonechat landed on the branch of a nearby plum tree and began its chattering and singing and her ears soon became attuned to the cacophony of birdsong around her. She walked through the rest of the trees and joined an uneven path shaded by large elms. Isobel continued on the dirt path, though it had not been tended like the others, leading her to believe it was not meant for the roaming spirits of guests. As it widened she saw before her a garden shed, door swung wide open as shafts of sunlight filtered through the old windows. She saw no one inside, only stacked planters, buckets and watering cans, and assorted gardening tools hung neatly from the walls.

The faint sound of a throat clearing shook her from her reverie. Turning, she found herself face-to-face with a young man. Just slightly taller than her, he stood shyly before her, head dipped and eyes scanning the ground between them. His wide-brimmed hat hid his eyes, but she could see his cheeks, smooth and tinged with pink from his exertions. A smudge of dirt just below his ear. A fresh scratch at the base of his neck where his shirt collar hung open.

“Oh, pardon me. Are you...are you the gardener?”

He lifted his head just enough to see her under the brim of his hat and she felt herself falling through the earth, through the sky, through the ocean. His brown eyes met hers and suddenly she knew the truth of it. The books had not lied. She felt it coursing through her veins and stretching across her skin. The flush, the flutter, the breath stolen.

His eyes traveled leisurely up the lace edge of her shawl to the porcelain lines of her neck. He swallowed, voice held captive by the perfect tendril of hair that wrapped around her ear’s lobe.

Under his gaze she knew he must see through her skin to the frantic rush of blood leaving her faint and trembling.

“I am. Please forgive me for disturbing you.” His voice was careful and quiet, emerging from his throat tentatively.

“No. I...surely I am disturbing your work.  I did not realize this path led here.” She moved to the side to let him pass, noting the buckets he held filled with dirt and bulbs. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and the tendons and muscles of his lithe forearms strained under the smudges of soil and droplets of sweat. He stepped carefully past her, lowering his head. Before he reached the shed, he was halted by her words. “Your gardens are magnificent. The loveliest I believe I’ve ever seen.”

He slowly set the buckets down, straightened, and turned to her, rubbings his hands absentmindedly on his trousers. As he lifted his head and met her eyes, he tipped his hat back to expose his face and a flush crept up his skin until his ears were pink. A smile bloomed on his face, so utterly open and vulnerable, Isobel felt her own naked emotions bubbling to the surface and tears pricked at her eyes.

“Thank you.”

His words traveled through the air and collapsed the space between them. From his mouth grew an invisible vine, which wrapped around her limbs and then her waist, slithering between her breasts and curling about her shoulders. The dirt beneath her feet seeped through the soles of her shoes and filled the spaces between her toes. She was rooted here, unable to move away. And her breath became the sweet honeysuckle scent permeating the air. His brown eyes, like polished oak streaked with amber, stayed on hers, unyielding.

“Miss. I am to accompany you back to the house.” Mackenzie’s voice broke the silent moment like water thrown on a fire. She turned to him, standing far down the path, hands clasped before him, and swallowed her instinct to argue. When she turned back the gardener was gone, the shed door closed, and she felt her throat constrict.

As she walked with Mackenzie, she counted each step and committed it to a bank that she would repay upon her return. She would walk this path again and know his name. She would draw words from his lips and greedily swallow them. What are women owed by the world if not a moment of desire before their talents are forcibly extracted?

* * *

 

Jamie held the reins loose in his hands, the horses needing little minding on the road home. He’d wandered for twenty minutes seeking Isobel and had begun to panic at his failure to find her when he noticed the blue of her shawl through the trees. He’d not come close enough to hear their words, but he recognized something in their demeanor.

He knew that stillness. Had felt it in the first moments in Claire’s presence. Like the world had slowed and dimmed around them as they spoke. The gardener had a peculiar look to him, almost fragile under her scrutiny. The awe on his face, he thought, must have been what he looked like as Claire angrily castigated her captors.

Isobel had changed after Geneva’s death. In some ways she’d come into herself, blossomed anew with her sister’s shadow gone. In other ways, she seemed more uncertain, clumsily navigating the demands of her maturity and expectations of her sex. A rebellion brewed beneath her sweet smile. He liked her, perhaps because of these traits, but at the very least because she had opened her heart to his son. He made a mental note to speak with John of this incident upon his next visit.

* * *

 

In the week since their visit, Isobel had endured a relentless droning of cloying utterances by her mother meant to steady her fragile, lovesick heart at the sudden departure of Robert. Isobel’s remark that he seemed a fine gentleman was apparently translated by her mother’s mind to be a declaration of true love and she would entertain no other sentiment. She heard the locks sliding shut, the deed performed by her own mother, made keymaster of the prison she herself lived in, while men congratulated themselves on the safekeeping of their women.

Isobel blew on the ink and read through the missive once more.

 

_Dear Mrs. Wilberforce,_

_I thank you for having my mother and I to your home last week. I hope you are all well and that Robert’s return to duty will not be long-lived. I must admit I was quite taken with your lovely gardens and have been longing to explore them some more. My heart felt quite lightened as I walked the tranquil paths. If it is agreeable I should like to visit you again tomorrow._

_Sincerely, Isobel Dunsany_

 

She pressed the seal into the wax and watched it cool. This felt reckless and mad and entirely necessary. Sleep had been fitful since the visit. As her head sunk into her pillow she saw the gardener’s long, pale fingers with dirt outlining his nail beds. His hair pulled back, damp with sweat on his neck. She closed her eyes and she could smell him, earth and tang and green.

Isobel knew it prideful, but she could not help but feel that this was not meant to be a singular encounter. The world had tilted and was demanding something of her. Of him. Nothing could progress or return to normalcy. She must return.

She strode purposefully toward Mackenzie who had led a horse to the entrance to the stables, handing off to a stable boy for cleaning. Isobel heard her sister’s chiding words in her head as she looked him in the eye. “I will require your assistance in transporting me to the Wilberforce home tomorrow.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isobel returns to the Wilberforce home to seek out the gardener.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was researching some mid-18th-century female writers to incorporate into this story and came across the works of Mary Leapor. Her poems instantly resonated and fit the Isobel of this story so I read a bit about her and was delighted to find she was the daughter of gardeners (!). With little formal education she became a successful writer. Her themes often speak to the powerlessness of women, and ruminations on beauty and the plight of those considered lacking.

_Then haste, my Friend, to yonder Sylvan Bowers,_

_Where Peace and Silence crown the blissful Hours;_

_In those still Groves no martial Clamours sound,_

_No streaming Purple stains the guiltless Ground;_

_But fairer Scenes our ravish'd Eyes employ,_

_Give a soft Pleasure, and a quiet Joy;_

_Grief flies from hence, and wasting Cares subside,_

_While wing'd with Mirth the laughing Minutes glide._

_See, my fair Friend, the painted Shrubs are gay,_

_And round they Head ambrosial Odours play;_

_At Sight of thee the swelling Buds expand,_

_And op'ning Roses seem to court thy Hand;_

 

_-excerpt from The Beauties of the Spring by Mary Leapor_

* * *

  

“I am to take Lady Dunsany to the village tomorrow morning. Will she also be accompanying you to the Wilberforce home?” Mackenzie pulled off his gloves and flexed his fingers. 

“Oh, I-” Isobel’s reply was interrupted by the sudden appearance of William, bursting from the stables with straw sticking in every nook and cranny of his tiny frame. He ran to Isobel and pulled at her dress.

“Are we going to ride?”

She ran her fingers through his thick hair, plucking out straw. “No, darling. Not right now. Perhaps Mac has something planned for you later.” His face fell and began to transform into a scowl that they had all learned was a precursor to a wail and she cut it off preemptively. “I had heard rumors of sweet cakes in the kitchens just before I walked down here. Do you want...to...”

He’d taken off before she’d finished saying “cakes” and she turned back to find Mackenzie with an amused smirk, watching William’s legs churning over the dewy grass. “Perhaps another groomsmen could take my mother. She won’t be joining me. I should… I would appreciate your discretion.” She met his eyes again and found his expression inscrutable, but not unkind.

“Of course.”

* * *

 

Isobel departed for the Wilberforce home shortly after her mother had gone to the village and spent the ride imagining all the scenarios she’d devised over the last week. How she’d stumble upon him while he trimmed a rose bush. He’d turn and place a rose over her heart, his hand lingering and tracing the ridge of her collarbone. Or perhaps he’d crest a hill with the sun shimmering around the edges of his body and she’d meet him there and… And what?

Why entertain these foolish notions fueled by foolish stories? He was not a painting or a poem. And she was no pink-cheeked heroine. She was a young woman stealing away from her home to be near a man she could never have. Who might not even want her.

Isobel pressed her hand into her back against a sharp ache announcing her impending courses. She was no great beauty, nor suffused with artistic talent. She possessed wit and curiosity, too much at times. And a heart pumping life and love under her skin. This gardener she’d imagined a lonely genius. A gentle fool like herself. But, just as appearances require a deep well of belief, so too do stories. And this one had scarcely begun.

A less formal gathering this time, Isobel found herself pulled into Mrs. Wilberforce’s arms as soon as she stepped to the ground. She made to pull away, but found her arms firmly locked down and she heard a sniffle near her ear.

“I’m sorry, dear. I’m terribly emotional and I’m afraid there’s no disguising it.” She pulled away and hooked Isobel’s arm through her own, directing her into the home.

“Is there something wrong? Should I not have come?” Guilt had already settled in her chest at the selfish nature of her visit.

“Oh dear, no. You will find I’m prone to being overwrought when it comes to the affairs of Robert and seeing you again, it just pulls at my heart. He’s on his way to Quebec, you know? How can they callously send him away across an entire ocean when he’s just returned? It will be months before we see him again! And dear...I will confess, my thoughts grow dark and I sometimes fear that…”

Her voice trailed off and Isobel squeezed her hands between her own. “Robert seems a very capable and level-headed officer. I’m certain he will return to you unscathed.”

Mrs. Wilberforce’s cheeks wobbled, and tears clung to the edges of her lashes. “I do think the prospect of returning to you, my dear, will guide him to safety.”

How had it happened so quickly? A landslide of shifting ground, futures proposed and decided with no more than a stroll. Isobel settled herself into a chair and peppered Mrs. Wilberforce with mundane questions to ease her mind. As the day wore on, after lunch and a tour of the library, the sun withdrew, and grey skies descended, humid and crackling.

Mrs. Wilberforce yawned deeply in the chair opposite Isobel and shook her head, embarrassed. “Pardon me, dear. I have slept so fitfully since Robert’s departure, and I’m afraid these grey skies are not helping.”

“Oh, you must rest. Please. I was hoping to take a walk around the grounds and then I think I must return home. I will say my goodbye to you now, so you can rest without concern of my return.”

She kissed Mrs. Wilberforce’s cheek and felt a genuine affection growing. She should be grateful to be welcomed into such a family. That she knew it, did not make it so, however. And as she rose to leave, she felt a great fluttering in her chest at the prospect of seeing the gardener again. Isobel paused in the doorway.

“The gardener. I think Robert mentioned his name, but I cannot recall it.” Why did she lie? Why mention Robert if not to abuse the trust and affection being so graciously given to her? She hated herself for a moment, for being unable to live in the confines of her place. For demanding more.

“Oh, young George? He’s something of a recluse, but I cannot fault him his timidity when I’m so richly rewarded with his gardening skills.”

“George. Yes, he’s quite talented. Thank you for having me today.”

Isobel slipped out of the house and let her feet drift where they may. George. That name felt so wrong to her. George is stout and jowly and loud. George is a banker, a gambler, a cognac aficionado. Her George - for she could claim ownership over the rich details of her imagination - is gentle and shy and glowing with the promising spirit of youth. He is an artist. A toiling visionary.

She had become so lost in thought she failed to notice she’d left the path entirely and was wading through a field of wildflowers. The land leveled for a small distance then sloped to a creek rushing quickly, swallowing the edges of the field as the waters poured over the rocky bank.

Her fingers drifted over the tops of the flowers, tickling her palms and she felt herself a child again, running through the grass with her sister, trying to keep up with her brother, yelling for him to slow down. And now she was alone, no longer chasing, but hiding. Was this even real or merely a fantasy she’d devised?

She nearly stepped on him, gasping at the sudden appearance of his crouched form, hidden in the tall flowers and grasses. “Oh!”

George tilted back his hat and looked up at her, his eyes pinched together in concern.

“Whatever are you doing here?” She’d not meant to blurt it out, but the surprise of the moment was not helping her temper her thoughts.

He made no move to rise and nodded at the ground. He’d gathered an injured bird in his hand and gently held his other over the top to hold it in place as he rose slowly. “It’s fallen from the nest. The mother has not returned so...I think it is alone. I was thinking perhaps I could care for it. Just until it could heal.” George looked at Isobel and a look of surprise washed over his face, as if he just realized she was real. He backed away from her, stumbling as he caught his foot on a rock. Before she could speak he turned and began to walk away.

She couldn’t keep up with him, unprepared for the uneven ground and unaware of the twists and turns through the land. Isobel lost sight of him for awhile but caught of a flash of the white of his shirt as he turned on the path to the shed. A light mist began to fall, curling the ends of her hair, dampening the exposed skin of her neck.

The shed door was shut, and she approached cautiously, as if he was the injured animal she wished not to startle. He did not look at her as she entered but concentrated on fashioning a nest of burlap upon the table in the corner. Isobel peered over his shoulder and saw he was trying to tie the ends together, struggling to hold the bird in place as he did so. She leaned over the table and grasped the fabric, pulling it gently from his hand and he relented, allowing her to finish the tie.

His shirt had absorbed enough moisture in the air to be clinging to his skin in spots, and she felt the heat of him suffusing the air between them.

He leaned back, his hand hovering near the bird to capture it should it try to flee.

“My name is Isobel. This bird is very lucky you found it, George.” He turned his head and looked to her with that same expression he had before. The shock of hearing his name from her lips. Or that she was speaking at all. He remembered himself and nodded slowly.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss.”

“Isobel. It would please me if you’d call me Isobel.”

The mist grew to rain and the drops fell in heavy splatters upon the shed, seeping through cracks in the wood and running down the window panes, casting weeping shadows on their flushed skins.

George stepped away from her and his eyes fell to her hands, to her fingers nervously rubbing her palms. He shifted on his feet, swallowing and tensing his jaw.

“Are you troubled by my presence? Do you wish for me to leave?”

His gaze slowly traveled up her arms and over the pocket of moisture gathered in the divot below her neck. His eyes locked onto hers and a slow, quivering smile grew on his face. “I am troubled by you, though I do not wish for you to leave.”

Isobel’s own smile grew wide and she felt a new space between them carved of curiosity.

“Tell me, George, how you came to be a magnificent gardener. Was it all your father’s tutelage or did your mother have some hand in it?”

George’s eyes grew dark, but not sad. A remembering clouding his face. “I am my father’s creation. All who I am, he devised. My mother died in childbirth.”

“Forgive me. That..I’m sorry.”

“No, it… It is strange to never have known her. I have a sadness that informs my very existence, but I have no memories to tie to it. Nothing tempers it, but it is not deep either. It doesn’t hurt the way my father’s death did.”

“Well, I have managed to invite you to speak about the saddest moments of your life without intending it and now I feel I have troubled you in entirely new ways.”

George smiled and shook his head.

Isobel smiled back and fiddled with the ruffles on her sleeves. “May I ask what you meant when you said you were your father’s creation? Do you not feel you should take more credit for what you’ve created here?”

He walked to her side and leaned back against the table, the fabric of her dress brushing against his shirt sleeves. Their shaking breaths filled the quiet shed, windows blurring with condensation. Minutes passed. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, swirling in the air before her.

“Isobel Dunsany of the Dunsany family. Isobel Wilberforce, wife of Robert Wilberforce. Mother of Robert Wilberforce the second.” Isobel started at his words, jarred by the brutal honesty of them. He paid no mind to her discomfort and continued. “If you could choose, if you were not a woman, laid claim by men, would you leave? Would you determine your own course knowing no great hindrance lie in wait?”

She sighed and shifted on her feet, noting the cracked leather of his boots next to hers. “Knowing the other side, knowing what it is like to not have that choice, I must say yes, of course I would set forth. But I do wonder if the steadfast presence of the choice makes it less urgent to pursue it. If simply knowing it is there is enough to placate one’s rebellious desires? It is such a risk, isn’t it? To walk away from conformity?”

George strolled to the door, his hands casually slipped in his pockets as he surveyed the clouds breaking. He spoke without turning to her. “When my mother died, and my father was left to care for me, foremost on his mind was finding a path for me. There is no room for rebellious desires when you don’t have something to turn back to should you fail. So, I became George, the gardener. My father created me, George the gardener, so that I might survive. I exist as his creation, but do you believe that is who I am? Will I believe you to be Isobel Wilberforce knowing it was not of your choosing?”

Her legs shook with the effort to move them and yet her head pounded to flee. One more moment of this contemplation would become an arrow nocked, aiming for her demise. She set her hand upon the door’s handle and he remained unmoving, forcing her to angle herself and squeeze by him to leave. And as she passed him, he grasped her hand in his. Squeezing. Stopping her, rooting her to the ground once more. Isobel’s nails dug into his flesh, not in anger, but in a desperate moment of marking. Of impressing the memory of her body on his as he’d impressed his spirit on hers.

George, the gardener. The recluse. The artist. The orphan. The healer of birds.

She eased her grip and ran her fingers over the surface of his skin, memorizing the smooth joints and calloused palms. Her finger dipped between his until it met the apex, the thin stretch of skin between fingers. His knuckles grazed her thigh, sparks crackling through the layers of fabric. Isobel pressed into the door, hating the feel of it dislodging from the warped jamb. Hating the gust of cool air that blew aware their lingering words and breath. He dropped his hand and she was pulled by the invisible hand of survival down the pathway.

Isobel felt the wetness on her cheeks only as the cool air dried it. She neared the side of the house and dropped to a crouch, clumsily snapping off a bunch of pink-tinged ladies smock and tucking it into her shawl before she rounded the corner to Mackenzie’s waiting carriage.

He looked at her pityingly and she felt anger welling up. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words died in his throat at her look. “Take me home.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isobel consigns herself to her future with Robert Wilberforce until an unexpected gift arrives. John Grey returns.

Her mother beckoned from the parlor when Isobel returned. She had not been foolish enough to believe her secret visit to the Wilberforce home was, in fact, a secret. But she trusted it was not Mackenzie who betrayed. She freshened herself from the ride and quickly considered where to put the flowers. Lord John had given her a book of poems during his last visit and she’d found herself turning to it often before sleep. She pulled it from the shelf and pressed the flowers between the pages.

Returning to her mother, Isobel settled beside her, her spine rigid in anticipation. She expected a certain chastisement by way of inquiry. A bewildered plea. A fawning attention concentrated by the absence of her siblings’ departed souls. But no words fell from her mother’s lips. Only a silence like the deafening weight of a snowfall, pillowing the sharp corners and echoes until one’s own breath came steadily too loud.

Isobel brought her wrist to her cheek and inhaled, the scent of the flowers lingering. The delicate pad of his palms imprinted on her fingertips.

“Your father wished to arrange your marriage to Lord Sheldon’s eldest son. He proposed it two months ago.”

Isobel’s eyes shot to her mother’s, shocked by this admission. How had she known nothing of this? How could her life’s direction be so entirely separate from her own mind?

“I know Lord Sheldon’s nature in a way perhaps your father does not. He possesses an...unstable temperament. I could not abide the suggestion that you be subjected to that, as those sorts of tendencies seem to be passed father to son. I convinced your father to hold and he agreed if I could provide a suitable alternative. The Wilberforce family holds little wealth or power but is not out of the realm of possibility. And I knew it would be a happy and safe match for you.”

Isobel’s pulse vibrated against her skin. At once grateful and furious.

“I have three children. They are not-” Her mother’s voice wavered, hesitated and shaking. Isobel lifted her mother’s hand to her lap, reassuring her in a way she had not since the innocent intimacy of youth had become buried under the hardening walls of loss.

Her mother squeezed Isobel’s hand and continued. “A mother’s children are never truly gone. But I know I can no longer give anything to Gordon or Geneva. You are the only one for whom my efforts will not be in vain.”

Isobel squeezed her eyes shut, stilling her body, trapping the tears. Her voice, a raw and heavy whisper. “Thank you.”

Her mother’s frame released the choking emotions of the moment and her posture tightened. The formal Lady Dunsany once more. “Lord John arrives tomorrow. I have asked him to bring word of Robert as he has friends involved in that front. It may be some time before we hear anything, however.”

* * *

 

Isobel’s head sunk into the pillow and she felt the heaviness of sleep drifting over her limbs. _It does not matter who I am, nor who you are, George. We still must wake and toil and don our hats and gloves and avert our eyes and hold the fabric of our world together with our steadfast loyalty to the names we’ve been given._

Tomorrow she would wake and forget the flowers wilting in her book. She would welcome Lord John and beg tales of his travels and watch her nephew practice his riding and compose no more fairy tales.

* * *

 

“Do ye know them well, the Wilberforces?” Jamie held the knight indecisively over the board, hovering between two choices, his eyes flicking to John’s face.

“Oh, well enough. They’ve done quite well for themselves considering where they started. Are you...concerned for our dear Isobel?”

Jamie placed the knight at last and grimaced, immediately regretting his choice. John smirked and moved counter without a moment’s consideration.

“Aye, the concern is less about her marrying into that family and more about her having...misplaced affections. I am no’ speaking ill of her - I’m quite fond of her. I am only telling ye this in confidence that ye will perhaps persuade her to take care.”

John leaned back and tilted his head, eyeing Jamie with a tinge of confusion. “Isobel scarcely knows Robert Wilberforce, so I think it no great concern that she might show faint enthusiasm toward her betrothal, but are you saying she…” He inched closer to Jamie and whispered. “Are you saying she has a lover?”

“Nae, perhaps no’ as serious as the word implies, but a burgeoning affection, wi’out question.”

John sighed, pursing his lips. “And you’ve seen the man at the Wilberforce home? Some relation?”

“No’ a relation. The gardener.”

“No.”

Jamie merely raised his brows and “hmmph”ed.

“Honestly, I can’t believe it of Isobel. Has he tried to take advantage of her?”

Jamie laughed quietly.

“You cannot find this amusing.” John was in no mind to take this lightly and was rather confounded by Jamie’s change in demeanor.

“No, it’s only that I’ve seen the man. And I use that word lightly. He’s a wisp o’ a man, barely more’n a lad, slight and fine-boned. I’d imagine Isobel would lay him low wi’ a careless swing o’ her parasol. If anything, she’s in pursuit o’ him.”  

“Thank you for telling me, Jamie. I will be sure to speak with her.”

* * *

 

John had intended it. Had practiced the conversation in his mind for two evenings. He’d imagined her rebuttals and his well-reasoned responses and how thoroughly his logic would persuade her to focus her affections on Robert. And in between the arguments in his mind, he remembered a time in his youth, when he’d fought his own heart. How it had felt to lose Hector and have no place to wear his grief. To want someone as ardently as the poets so passionately expressed, yet have no voice to rejoice in it. Did his brother’s admonitions ever dissuade his heart?

He found Isobel one morning attempting to teach William how to play quoits, which seemed an ill-fated venture and he kept well away as the young boy revved his arm for a toss.

“John! William is proving quite a sportsman. Come watch.”

“Have you resigned yourself to a life without teeth then, standing so near his range of trajectory?”

Isobel’s hands flew to her face and she quickly turned away, body shaking. Had her corset been a bit looser she might have fallen forward. Taking deep breaths to calm herself she turned back to him, red-faced. “That was horribly cruel of you to say. Now I won’t be able to stop worrying about losing my teeth.”

He barked a laugh and swallowed it immediately as William shot them both a censorious glower. They watched him in amusement for a few minutes and fell into a comfortable silence. “You are good with him, Isobel. He is fortunate to have your influence.”

“I wonder sometimes what Geneva would have been like with him. If she would have been infatuated with him. I try to imagine, but I can’t. She held us all at a greater distance than we ever knew.”

“Aren’t all mothers infatuated with their children?” It was a careless statement. He certainly knew the fickle sensibilities of humanity did not spare parents’ adoration of their children.

She looked askance at him, curious if he meant her to answer.

He returned the look with a sheepish nod. Quietly, he continued. “You will make a very devoted and adoring mother someday, Isobel. I think that is plain to see.”

Her frame stiffened for a moment, shifting the air between them from the frothy amusement of their banter to the stark, solid reality of her orchestrated future. “Do you know him? Robert?”

“I’ve met him. Chatted about nothing of consequence. He’s charming and pleasant. He will make a fine husband.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“I would warn you, however, to enter this marriage with your heart freely given. Not bound elsewhere, or you will find it torn asunder.”

She turned to him, searching his eyes. “I do not possess a courageous heart. Fear is its keeper, bound only by my own uncertainties.”

A sharp yell from Willie startled them out of their moment and both breathed again. A relief to John, who had no rebuttal for such brutal admissions. He stretched his neck, rolling it from shoulder to shoulder as tension rolled off him.

“When will you have word of Robert?”

“A month. Perhaps more.”

* * *

 

The loquacious Mrs. Wilberforce, when devoid of guests, focused her efforts on producing frequent missives to keep Isobel abreast of the goings-on of their estate. She soon became well-acquainted with the quality of lamb based on supplier - Mr. Castler had once been reliable but has been feeding his stock “questionable grasses”.

And once wed, Isobel would have no questions as to the precise time to take tea and why one must drink half their tea before eating anything - it ensures the most efficient and thorough digestion according to a London doctor Mr. Wilberforce recently met while playing cards. And no, she musn’t think Mr. Wilberforce plays cards often. Quite infrequently, in fact.

In the third week since her last visit, Isobel received her seventh letter from Mrs. Wilberforce and with it, a bouquet of flowers. She could not say who set the vase down before her. Voices, hands, appreciative mutterings, and a letter placed on her open palm. Her eyes lingered not on the petals, the delicate flowers whose scents filled the stale air of the room, but on the stems. The green, solid stalks where his fingers had grasped while he sliced through them. A scrape in the flesh of one where his nail had cut through releasing a drip of moisture.

He’d killed what he loved for her.

 

_Dearest Miss Dunsany,_

_My sincerest regards to your fine family. As always, I am impatiently waiting for your next visit. Do surprise me some day. I’ve found myself talking to the paintings of late and fear I’ll be carted off soon if I don’t acquire proper companionship. My dearest husband is forever finding excuses to escape and when he is here, I might as well be talking to a painting (a very fine and noble painting, but a mute one, nonetheless)._

_As you may have noticed, I’ve sent along a small token of flowers. I hadn’t thought to do so, but I noticed our gardener working on a new bed recently and he’s done the most startling things with it - you must see for yourself! And, of course, I thought of you and how delighted you are by our gardens. It became quite obvious to me that since you cannot be here to enjoy them, I must try to send them to you._

_I had no notion of what flowers you might enjoy so I asked George (you recall, that is the gardener’s name) to put together a bunch for you. Of course, he would not settle for daisies or tulips or any predictable bouquets. I was a little uncertain of his choice at first, but it did grow on me and I hope you can see it for the unique and delightful collection it is._

_I eagerly await your reply,_

_Mrs. B. Wilberforce_

 

“Oh my.” Isobel’s ladies’ maid, Ivy, cooed over the bouquet. “I’ve not seen a bouquet such as this before. Roses are expected, and carnations, poppies and such. This is rather unusual, but quite lovely.”

Isobel’s brow rose at Ivy’s remarks. “What makes you say that they’re unusual?”

“Oh, just particular flowers can have meaning, you see?”

“I’ve heard some, I think. Are you familiar with them?”

Ivy puffed her chest out a bit, enjoying her moment of superiority. “Roses, of course, are symbols of purest love. Tulips you might give to declare your love. Orchids for great beauty.”

“And what of _these_ particular flowers?”

“Well, it is mostly gardenias here, and they are also symbolic of love, but not so openly...something that is secret perhaps. But this one is especially interesting. This large one right in the middle. I’m afraid I don’t recall its name, but I think it’s something to do with courage or transformation. Oh, I’m sure there’s no such thoughts behind these, of course. They’re quite lovely and so thoughtful of Mrs. Wilberforce.”

The familiar tightening in her chest returned. Isobel had been willfully denying herself. The green life of her feelings had grown dull, burning brown at the edges. The leaves, wilted. She’d meant to do as John had said; free her heart and face her future without impediment. These flowers, like rain bursting from heavy clouds to pummel the cracked soil, shattered her illusions, and she felt the awful weight of her heart.

She rose and drifted to the desk, pulling out her stationery and ink, and sat, unmoving, before the paper. Hovering over it with dreams of pouring out passionate prose. Of spilling her heart’s desire in poetic diction, imagining the muscles shifting beneath the skin of his porcelain jaw as he reads her words. His own aching soul grasping the air around him for want of her embrace.

Here, in this quiet misery, lie the truth of love. The torrential force that tears the threads of one’s self apart slowly and agonizingly will heed no caution. It will require no approval nor wait for suitable environs. Love is myopic in its focus. For though the path between two lovers may be fraught with danger, though the world may conspire against it, love compels and has no concern for what may be lost.

The scratch upon the paper as the ink bled out words was the only sound, save her shuddering breath.

 

_Dear Mrs. Wilberforce,_

_I cannot tell you what joy your letters have brought and I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the flowers you sent. You have convinced me that I simply must see the gardens again. I have missed our conversations a great deal._

_I will attend you tomorrow if that is suitable. My mother, and our dear family friend, Lord John Grey, will be joining me. He knows Robert (and may even receive word of his well-being in the coming weeks!), and will be pleased to make your acquaintance._

_Isobel Dunsany_


	4. Chapter 4

John tugged Isobel off the gravel to a narrow path comprised of intermittent slate in a sea of thyme. Their steps kicked up the scent and John felt himself suddenly craving soup.

“Are you sure this is even a path?” Isobel stepped gingerly over the tangles of herbs.

“Well...it’s not _not_ a path. I think.” He shot a cheeky grin back at her and her answering laugh caused them both to stumble.

She reached out a hand instinctively and grabbed his arm, pulling herself to him.

“Steady, my dear. This is no _time_ for missteps.”

“Oh no. You’ve been reading Jonathan Swift again, haven’t you?” She arched a teasing brow.

John, while unable to resist clever wordplay, was also quick to feel abashed and a blush rose on his cheeks. They stepped together off the slate path and onto another pea gravel walk that led to the new beds Mrs. Wilberforce had raved about. Their visit had thus far boosted the spirits of all attendees. Her mother and Mrs. Wilberforce had returned to the house, opting out of the extensive garden walk that Isobel and John set out for.

The effect of John’s presence surprised Isobel. She’d initially been perturbed by it, a needling worry deep down, one that she could not acknowledge, that she would be seen with him. That George might think her attentions perfidious.

It was absurd when examined, however. She was intended for Robert. John, a family friend. No one would dispute this. And she, herself, had cursed her desires and chastised the spurious intentions of her visit. Every moment she felt herself a pendulum, cast between a solid and respectable union, and a passionate and impossible affair.

A third possibility began to solidify as she walked with John. The ease of their conversation, the humor and challenge and curiosity that bounced between them was a balm to her unease. Could this be a life? A friendship elevated by the simple beauty of affection and respect? Would that a marriage make? That was not the way of it, though. Nothing in her experience could support the existence of such a thing, though no one had ever explained why not.  

She started the day with intentions to find George. She re-lived those moments with him in the shed over and over. They played on the backs of her eyelids and kept her body alight in the dark of the night. The smell - his smell - clung to her and she craved it. But here in the daylight, with him somewhere near, she began to wish against it. _Do not appear. I will fall to the earth if you appear. My heart will bleed out._ She wished only to stop feeling.

She walked with John and they talked and marveled at the artistry of the gardens. “Were his medium paint instead of flora, I daresay he would command great respect and wealth.”

“Do you think so? Sometimes I wonder if there are not brilliant artists all around us, hidden behind the walls of hovels. It seems fortune cares little for our talents or lack thereof.” She was being unkind to John, letting her irritability overcome her better senses.

To his credit, he returned only a genial smile and nodded at a trail leading up a wooded hill. “This way next, I think.”

He turned and took long strides toward the hill while her voice weakly died in the wind between them. “No, that’s...just the gardener’s shed.”

John felt the heat of shame as he walked away from her. He knew, of course, what was up this hill. Had spied it from a distance as they rounded the new beds. And his curiosity, to get a measure of this gardener, got the better of him.

He didn’t believe she was serious about an affair, not with his observations of her mood here today. But still, something was off about her. And he needed to see for himself. The door to the shed was ajar and he approached quietly. Isobel’s hurried breath announced her arrival behind him and she grasped his elbow, pulling him back from entering.

“John! It’s just the gardener’s shed. We shouldn’t be disturbing it.”

“I don’t think he’s even here. I’m just curious what he’s got in here. I won’t be long.” He eased the door open wider and stepped in, leaving Isobel behind, her limbs rigid and unyielding as her mind raced.

“Isobel! Come here!”

His voice was tinged not with worry, but delight. She stepped inside and saw him grinning at a beam above the window, upon which sat a bird. _The_ bird.

“Do you think he’s trapped?”

John’s question floated through the air, never reaching her ears. She saw only George’s hands cradling that bird. The gentle worry of his efforts. And her thoughts fell from her lips, unbidden. “Is he healed?”

“She.”

John and Isobel turned to the door where George stood, hands clutching soil-encrusted gloves nervously before him.

Isobel had imagined she’d be upset by his presence, had wished against it, and yet now, she found herself smiling. Grateful. And utterly unaware of John’s curious gaze. “She can fly?”

George nodded, a grin pulling at his lips. “She is healed. And can fly where she wishes. But I leave the door open because she likes to return to visit occasionally.”

“We are sorry to have intruded in your space.” George raised his head at John’s comment. John’s breath caught in his throat as he met George’s eyes. It was only for a moment. George retreated into himself quickly, remembering his place. But in that small moment, John saw him, and he understood him.

There are common threads among souls. Wit and talents and curiosities, and sometimes something deeper and nameless. It lives in the dark well of the eye, reflecting a story of struggle and loss and desire, and it’s spoken through the silence between words. John knew that deeper thing in him, recognized it in himself. And suddenly he felt like they were all drowning.

“We should return to your mother, Isobel. I’m sure they’re worried we’ve lost our way by now.”

John grasped her arm, momentarily unyielding. She relented and fell in step with him. As they passed by George, she breathed a word. “Goodbye.”

George stayed in the doorway, his hands hung loose at his sides, gloves dropped to the ground. He watched them leave and felt the ground crumble beneath him. Falling through the earth he grabbed at roots and they ripped his palms. He kicked at ledges as he hurtled past and the rocks flew into his eyes and his mouth, filling his lungs until he sunk heavily into the soil, buried. Each loss, another fall. Another climb through the earth to find air again. “Goodbye.”

The bird flitted over his shoulder and soared through the maze of trees until it met sky and disappeared from his sight. George pulled the door shut.

* * *

 

John spent the next month as Isobel’s devoted companion, as much for her sake as his own. He needed to know she’d found her strength to meet her future. He needed to know she’d eschew the certain pain of an impossible affair for the life being offered her.

As much as his own heart might ache for someone he could not have, he would not ever put his desires above the well-being of those he cherished. He would go without, because he could. Because he must. There was no choice. And so it would be for Isobel. And he would be her steadfast friend.

The letter came just before dinner. John considered calling Isobel in to read it with him as he suspected it to be news of Robert, but decided against it, being too curious to wait.

 

_John,_

_I have news from a crew member who sailed to Quebec with young Wilberforce. He spoke highly of him, said he was a strong and dutiful sailor, and he was most distressed to inform me that Robert Wilberforce did succumb to illness aboard the vessel before they were able to reach the mainland. They were no less than a few days out when he died and was buried at sea._

_I am certain the family will be hearing of this as soon as you, if not sooner, but as I had promised word, I felt I should deliver, though it be most unfortunate._

_Lawrence_

 

He crumbled the note in his hands. John could feel the gears of the universe turning. A shift in the landscape. And the stars spelling out their design for him. He knew what he must do.

* * *

 

Isobel had cried for Robert. For a future she had struggled with but ultimately accepted. For his mother, who loved deeply and feared for him knowing, as mothers seem to, that fate would be unkind. For her own selfish schemes, made all the more grotesque in this senseless loss.

The tears had dried when they visited Mrs. Wilberforce. The dark spirit of mourning drained even the gardens of their usual vibrancy. She welcomed them and pulled them ever tighter against her. They somehow laughed in the midst of it, uncertain how to access the right emotions anymore. And as the afternoon wore on, as Isobel remembered the conversation with her mother about her father’s intentions, she felt herself unable to breathe.

“I must get some fresh air for a moment. I’ll just be a little while.”

How many times had she promised never again to walk this trail? How many more would she betray herself? She stumbled over loose rocks and tree roots in her haste, gulping the air as if it would blow away the darkness she’d welcomed.

He was there. She could see him in her mind’s eye, exactly as he appeared as she approached the door.

She stumbled over the doorway and flung her hand out, steadying herself against a table filled with discarded pots. Isobel said nothing, having not considered any words in her haste to find him.

He looked at her with a deep sadness and let his words squeeze through the heavy silence. “I wish I could relieve the pain you are feeling in your loss.”

A whimper escaped her lips. “My loss? What have I lost, George? A future with a man I did not know? Do you think my heart breaks? I am a monstrous creature. A family grieves, and I am distraught, not for the loss of him or his undoubtedly good heart, but because I am tossed once again upon the pedestal for examination, so men might bid on my stock. And I must learn to be beautiful and pliant to lure a worthy buyer. But I am neither of those things, am I? Nor should I wish it.”

“No, you are not pliant. Nor would _I_ wish it.” George took a tentative step forward. “But you are mistaken about the other.” A step closer.

Isobel could see the faint freckles dusting his nose and cheekbones, the smooth skin along the angle of his jaw. “I am distraught…” Her voice broke, raw and weak. “...because I would risk ruination, both mine and yours, to assuage my ceaseless desire to see you with my own eyes, to simply know you exist.”

A step closer, their feet nearly touching, their breaths mingling in the crackling space between their faces. Isobel raised her arm slowly and pulled his hat from his head, to see his face unshadowed. His brown, wavy hair bound loosely at his neck. He somehow looked even more delicate and beautiful. Her eyes slowly perused his features in grateful awe.

He watched her and spoke low. “Is it enough for you to see me? Are you sated?”

Her eyes fell to his lips. “No, it’s not enough.”

His hands hovered at her temples, afraid to touch her. He leaned in until his forehead touched hers, the tips of their noses brushing, their breath warming the other’s lips. Isobel’s fingers grasped the front of his shirt and tugged, and he let himself fall against her, pressing his lips to hers gingerly at first and then, as he tasted her sweet breath, pulled on her lush lower lip and wove his fingers through her hair, freeing strands from her braids.

The heat of his mouth, the softness of his lips shocked her. She didn’t want to stop or imagine breathing a breath that wasn’t mixed with his. He lowered one hand and rested it on her back, pulling her flush against him, trapping her hand between them as it rested on his chest. Her mind reeled at the sensations and it perhaps took her longer than it normally might to become aware of the strange fabric beneath her fingers.

She pulled her mouth away to catch her breath and focused on her hand, on the tightly wound fabric beneath his shirt. It appeared to be a bandage across his chest. “What happened? Why didn’t you say something?” She reached for the button of his shirt and his hand stilled hers. He looked at her imploringly, a sadness swallowing the flush of passion that had existed moments before. He dropped his hand and nodded, then looked away, unable to watch her face.

She imagined scarred flesh, preparing herself for burns or cuts that would churn her stomach. She promised herself she would not make him feel shame for whatever was revealed. She lifted his shirt and her fingers hooked into the end of the fabric that had been woven through other pieces to hold it tightly together and she began unraveling it. He lifted his arms to assist her efforts.

It had been pulled so tightly it left red marks with each revealed inch of flesh and she ran her fingers over the indents, causing him to shiver at her touch. He breathed easier as she unwound the fabric, but his face remained frozen, staring off to the distance, tears filling his eyes.

She felt many things all at once when the last of the fabric fell. Relief, awe, sadness, joy, desire, love. Something deep inside her heart clicked, as if she had known and was waiting for the final piece. Her own life, all the times she wondered what was missing, what was wrong. But now, the questions dissolved and the air in this space formed a solid world between the two of them, the certain truth of who they were, taking root in an earth not bound by the designs of their fathers.

Isobel drew her fingers lightly across ribs, gooseflesh rising. Her knuckles lightly grazed the underside of George’s breasts eliciting a gasp and she curled her hand around her waist, marveling at the expanse of perfect skin. George lowered her head, curling into Isobel’s neck, and choked out her plea. “Please do not tell them.”

Isobel drew her lips down George’s neck, from ear to shoulder. “Never.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Isobel discuss their future. George hears difficult news.

Bumps rose on George’s exposed skin and she shivered as Isobel’s teeth scraped along her neck. She grasped her head and pulled her lips to her own again, claiming them hungrily, as if this moment might evaporate. As if she might wake from this dream and find herself flushed and swollen and alone.

Isobel spoke against George’s mouth, her fingers trailing down her spine. “Someone could see us.”

George stepped back, her hands dropping to her side, shaking. She picked up the length of fabric that had fallen to the ground and began methodically binding herself again, not looking at Isobel. Here, in love, lived shame and fear and all the miseries love ought to have vanquished.

Isobel’s hand caught George’s and she took the fabric from her and began to wind it around her torso as she had done. With each turn around, Isobel placed a kiss on her shoulder, her collarbone, her neck, her cheek. As she tucked the end of the fabric into itself to hold it in place, she asked George, “Do you have another name?”

George’s eyes, heavy with unshed tears, met Isobel’s. “No.”

“Do you want another name?”

She ducked her head low, a small, shy smile forming. “I… I used to imagine new names for myself, new stories. And I sometimes think of myself as someone named Hannah. I like that name.”

Isobel smiled and brushed a tear from George’s cheek with her thumb. “Do you want to be Hannah?”

“Mmhm. Yes. I can be Hannah with you.”

Isobel handed the shirt to her and watched her pull it over her head, buttoning the top, slowly donning her disguise. “I will find a way to see you again, Hannah. I promise you that. But…” Isobel’s throat grew tight, fighting against the words she needed to say. “But I don’t know what lies ahead for me, nor how I will navigate it. And I fear it may be some time before I can return. But please, _please_ , do not lose hope. I will hold you in my thoughts and in my heart for every moment I am away, and I will return for you.”

What promises the heart makes. So eager to offer devotion, salvation. Isobel knew her declaration was as much a reassurance to herself as it was a vow to Hannah. The triumph of the kiss, the truth laid bare, the claiming of themselves - none of it could prove strong enough to promise a future.

Hannah drew Isobel close again, the rose bloom of their cheeks tickling. Their fingers flitted over skin and clothes. Isobel grasped the sleeves of Hannah’s shirt, fingers tangling in the fabric as her breath grew ragged, a hiccup and tears began to fall. “I have to lea-”. Her words were cut short, cast out of the moment by Hannah’s lips. This kiss was not the uncertain and fumbling gentleness of the first. This was a kiss for leaving. Bruising and biting and punctuated with cries and gasps. When, at last, they parted, fingers still rhythmically clenching, Isobel drifted backward. Her eyes remained fixed on Hannah, who angrily swiped at tears streaking down her flushed cheeks.

“Isobel.” Hannah’s voice was rough, a rasping whisper. “I’ll be here.” _Don’t forget about me._

* * *

 

Isobel curled a bit of lace around the end of her finger, pulling tight and releasing to watch the blood return. Her parents’ chattering voices were little more than musical accompaniment to her mind’s narration. John sat next to her, his leg crossed over the other bouncing incessantly, a nervous energy flowing from him. He’d kept near her since the discovery of Robert’s death, as if she might be overcome and require him to catch her. John was chivalrous to a fault and despite the occasional annoyance, she loved him for it.

She did love John. It may not be infused with desire, but it was love nonetheless. Love had been foremost on her mind since that day with Hannah. Could she say she loved Hannah without knowing her the way she knew John? He, her lifelong friend. Is knowledge necessary to love or could it be compelled by something less commonplace? All the marriages that began with two strangers and blossomed into love - was it merely time and knowledge that tipped the scales of the heart? If not love, then what was it that made her heart race at the memory of her kiss? What was it that made her shake, her fingers digging into the wood of the windowsill when she stared out into the darkness every night, as she cast her mind out looking for a way for them to be together and finding nothing but impossibility?

The questions plagued her and kept half her mind imprisoned until she’d become an unfortunate conversational partner. Would Hannah like this music? Would she laugh at the faces William made? If they were far from prying eyes, would she give chase until they caught each other breathless? Would she hate this life with the quiet restraints of duty and protocol?

John excused himself from the room and Isobel followed a few minutes later, curious to know what occupied his mind. She found him pacing around a small flower bed, his eyes darting to the stables nearby every few minutes.

“Despite the distance, I fear you’ll scare the horses, John.”

He looked back at her, pink-cheeked and biting his lip. “I am not the picture of serenity at the moment, am I?”

“No. What troubles you?” She walked to the center of the garden and settled on the stone seat, the cold seeping through her dress to the backs of her legs.

John joined her on the stone and she felt the heat from his body warming the air around them. His fingers picked at invisible lint on his trousers. “Alex Mackenzie is leaving. Returning to his family.”

“Is he?” She feigned shock, but they both were quite aware of the inevitability of this. So much had been left unsaid, but she could see William’s parentage as clear as day. And the thought stung more than she’d imagined it would. To be forced to leave your child was a pain she couldn’t fathom. “You will miss him, no doubt.”

John’s face was drawn tight, emotions rippling under his skin. “Yes, I will.”

She hadn’t put a name to it, hadn’t really recognized it until this moment. That Mac’s departure was something deeper for John. Something she recognized. His hand nervously scratched at his thigh and Isobel placed her hand lightly over his, stilling him. “Is there more?”

“Yes, but not so troubling. I am nervous perhaps, but only for fear of an undesired outcome.” He turned his hand, so their palms touched and placed his other hand over the top, turning to her. His brows knit together, an expression both hopeful and apprehensive. “I sometimes think you and I are looking at the world through some other scope, like the light is a little different color for us. Perhaps that is why I have always enjoyed your company so. You understand me. And I feel I understand you.”

She nodded and let this path open before her, fighting off any urge to resist it. The time had come.

“I am your most faithful servant, Isobel. And I should be honored to also be your husband.”

Honor. Faith. Protection. He was offering her all he could, for them both. And her heart felt profound gratitude. He could not be who she wanted, but he could promise her a life away from those she did not want. And that, she knew, was his gift to her. And hers to him.

She opened her mouth to speak, to answer him, and found the words lodged in her throat. Tears pricked at her eyes as she whispered the word that felt at once a betrayal and a salvation. “You are very dear to me, John. It is I who would be honored.”

He knew the agony beneath her smile. He’d worn it himself a thousand times.

“Although William...I do not want to leave him -”

“We will stay here with him. I would not take him from his home just now. We will care for him, you and I, as if he were our very own.”

Isobel released a sigh of relief. For John’s noble offer, for the knowledge she could raise her sister’s son. And deep inside her a wisp of air fanned a flame.  

* * *

 

Hannah settled the wheelbarrow next to the stables and retrieved the shovel from behind the door. She heard a distinctly feminine voice drifting in the air and stopped her work to try to catch the words. It was the kitchen maid, Anna. She had a fondness for the stable boy and often delivered vast and questionable gossip to his mostly uninterested ears.

“It doesn’t seem proper for her to be marrying so soon after Robert’s death, does it?”

“Well, she can’t very well wait either. They weren’t official in any case. You’re making too much of it.”

Anna huffed indignantly at his chastisement and continued. “It might not be so unseemly except she’s marrying that Lord Grey who she seemed too friendly with when they visited to offer condolences.”

Hannah’s fingers dug into the wood handle of the shovel, twisting until her skin caught on slivers. She turned and quickly began filling the wheelbarrow, the manure burning her nostrils. If they continued talking, she could not say, for only a buzzing filled her head.

What a precarious ledge she found herself on, left with a promise of return, but no collateral save the memories of a moment. The trust she’d given Isobel on that day was more than she could measure. It left her stretched to her limits and choking on the fear that had been her sustenance until that day.

She would return, she said. She would not forget her. Hannah had branded that on her heart. But Isobel lived outside Hannah’s tiny world, and the reality of what she wasn’t privy to felt like a blow to her chest. She felt small and utterly forgotten in an instant.

Hannah left the wheelbarrow at the perennial gardens and walked quickly back to the shed, pulling the door shut behind her as a cry escaped her mouth. This foolish, maddening emotion warred within her. How could she ask Isobel not to protect herself in marriage? How can she claim to love when such selfish demands well up in her?

Taking deep breaths, she calmed herself and leaned her head against a beam, letting her eyes fall shut. John had been with Isobel that day after they’d learned of Robert’s death. And he had looked at her with...what? A wariness perhaps, but it was not unkind. Did he know? Is that why he asked for Isobel’s hand? That he might save her from the wicked desires he spied between them?

The moment with Isobel, when she saw Hannah for who she was, was the only time in her life when she’d felt herself true. When she was not hiding or cowering or wishing away her shackles. And the giddy freedom of that moment lifted her spirit to a place it had never been. Now, in the humid confines of the shed, she felt as imprisoned as ever. Ashamed at herself for believing she might live without disguise someday. Ashamed for her naivety in thinking the raging currents of love could reshape the world for her.

* * *

 

Weddings, Isobel had found, were for the satisfaction and relief of everyone but the couple marrying. Her opinions about preparations fell upon deaf ears. Her inquiries tutted away. Until one day she found herself standing in the church, John at her side, her mind fully consumed by the bit of lace irritating the tender skin of her wrists.

She had woken that morning in the blind panic of unsettled dreams. Having spent her sleep opening every door in a dream version of the estate. And every door left her more and more disturbed, unable to find Hannah. She had promised to come for her, but now she was gone. Had she left? Been found out? Had Isobel’s failure doomed her?

_I have not forgotten you._

A trickle of sweat slid down John’s temple though the church felt drafty to Isobel. He grasped her hands in his and she looked down at them in surprise, as if she’d suddenly woken in the back of a wagon, uncertain of her destination.

_Wilt thou have this woman_

She couldn’t read his eyes. What she would give for a peek inside his head in this moment.

_In sickness and in health_

Now, until death. John. It would do no good to suddenly consider what that meant. That her life was now set upon a path. The question of where she would go had been answered. She would go where John went.

He squeezed her fingers and nodded for her to repeat the vows. Her voice sounded distant. Underwater.

She had been so relieved to not be marrying a wicked man, she’d overlooked the simple matter of where John might want to go. He’d assured her they’d stay at Helwater for William, but for how long?

John slid the ring over her finger. A simple adornment. A claim.

_With my body I thee worship_

She looked up from their hands and found his eyes trained on her lips, looking upon them not with yearning, but something she might describe as terror.

_What have we gotten ourselves into, John?_


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isobel and John's wedding night

Isobel caught her reflection in the mirrored hall as she returned to the dining room. The din of conversation and the _tink_ of forks against plates and her father’s guffaws echoed off the high ceilings and made the place feel more cavernous than usual.

She ran her finger down the embroidered trail of flowers along the front of her wedding gown. Her hair hung about her face in perfect ringlets, her cheeks flushed with wine and heat, and she thought for a moment that she might be considered beautiful.

_Is this what married women look like?_

She imagined herself through Hannah’s eyes, how she might draw her fingers down Isobel’s long neck and press her lips to the whorls of her ear. Her breath would elicit shivers from Isobel’s body as her tongue darted out to flick at her ear lobe.

Footsteps of a retreating servant woke Isobel from her trance. Returning to the dining room and taking her seat beside her husband once again, she pushed food about her plate, drank more wine than was advisable, and made a good show of being the blushing, vibrant bride. John, too, fixed his eyes adoringly on her face a bit more than was necessary. Touched her hand when he was certain all were watching. And beneath the table, his leg bounced. A servant bent to John’s ear, sometime around dessert, and whispered something she failed to catch. He nodded and let a small smile form on his face. As she leaned in to ask him what pleased him so, he turned to her and kissed her cheek.

“You look radiant, my dear.”

She blushed, despite herself. An affectionate drunk then.

John kept up with Isobel the rest of the night, tipping his glass back and holding it out blindly for refills. She liked him a bit inebriated. His eyes sparkled, and he giggled girlishly when she teased him.

The candles burned low and her family slowly drifted away. John rose and she grasped his arm as they walked, suddenly sober, to the wing of the house that contained their private rooms.  They had two bedrooms, adjoined, and an additional sitting room that John was slowly transforming into a small library. It was the strangest she’d ever felt in her home, at once feeling as if she’d been married forever and as if she’d only just arrived.

He swayed just a bit, or she did. Impossible to say when they both were a bit wobblier than usual. The sconces were lit outside her door and he paused, releasing her arm. “I’m going to uh…” He stared at her, lost for words.

“Do you -?”

“Ah, no I will just...I’m going to freshen up a bit. It’s been quite a day.”

She nodded, acknowledging him, but not entirely sure of what was going on. She was fairly certain he’d be joining her at some point. She was quite clear on the expectations of her wedding night thanks to a few rather uncomfortable conversations with her mother, her maid, and her mother’s maid for good measure.

John clumsily leaned in and kissed her cheek, nearly missing it entirely. He turned and walked to his door and nodded once more to her before closing it behind him.

Isobel’s body melted as she entered her room, tension and anxiety rolling off her. The butterflies still fluttered in her stomach and she cursed John a bit for not just getting on with it. She called Ivy to help her undress and wash the weight of the day off her skin. Ivy, to her credit, knew not to inquire about any activities or lack thereof, and quietly left Isobel to herself.

Her mother had given her a nightgown that seemed entirely too gaudy for sleeping and she wondered if it was meant as some sort of seductive costume though she felt entirely inadequate to successfully do any such thing. She wrapped a robe around her and began brushing her hair, instantly calming her entire being until she felt the drowsy weight of sleep begin to creep over her skin.

Whatever contentment she’d achieved was shattered at the knock on the door joining their rooms. A blush rose over her skin and she set down the brush. Her feet slid across the floor and she felt utterly naked, skin prickling with every swish of fabric as she moved.

Isobel pulled the door open slowly. Her hand, which had been nervously twisting the fabric of her robe, flew to her face, catching the breath that whooshed from her lungs.

She would have fainted had she still been constrained by a corset. Her body heaved, gulping the air greedily, and waves of adrenaline sped up her heart until she heard her blood thundering in her ears. Her legs traitorously swayed as the scent filled the air. Gardenias and lavender and soap and earth.

“Do I look ridiculous?”

“No.” The word escaped Isobel’s lips as a cry, a joyous release of the pressure and fear built up inside her.

Their feet moved in unison as Isobel stepped back to allow Hannah entry, snicking the door shut behind her. If John had been there, she could not say.

Hannah looked at her with a vulnerability that took Isobel’s breath away. To be here, in this place, at this moment, had to have taken every last drop of courage.

“Is this the first time you’ve worn a dress?”

“Yes. It’s very strange. I don’t know quite how to move in it.”

Isobel stepped back. The dress was pale green, like the hellebores Hannah grew along the western garden trails. Embroidered vines twisted through the folds in the fabric and fell into a sea of cream silk at the chest. “You look lovely, Hannah.”

A smile and blush grew on Hannah’s face.

“That is just how you looked the day I met you. You smiled just like that when I told you I loved your gardens.”

“It is a smile only for you.”

“Is it wicked of me to take pleasure in that? To claim it for myself only? I would not share you.”

The absurdity of such a statement struck them both. A new husband a room away, settling himself in for the night.

Hannah tentatively reached her hand across the space between them and touched the silk of Isobel’s robe. “I am not the only one here wearing something new. Would this please John?”

Isobel shook her head. “John is...too good for this world. He deserves a good deal more than I can ever give him.”

“He said the same of you. When he proposed to bring me here and I asked why he would do such a thing.”

“Then he is a fool, because he has given me more than I could ever hope for. I think this must be a dream. Dawn will come and I will wake.”

“Don’t wake.”

Isobel wrapped her fingers around Hannah’s wrist and drew it to her lips, placing a soft kiss on the delicate skin, over the blue veins pulsing like swollen rivers. The smell and taste of her skin made Isobel dizzy and desperate.

Hannah’s breath hitched. “Can I-? I need to…”

“What is it?”

“These shoes are too small.”

A giggle bubbled up Isobel’s throat and Hannah followed suit. Isobel glanced down and pulled up on the bottom of the dress.

“Are those mine?”

“We didn’t have time to find others.”

Hannah sat on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, stopping short at the realization that her corset had no intention of allowing her access to her own feet. Isobel knelt before her and slipped the shoes off, her fingers lingering on Hannah’s stockinged ankles. “I’ll help you.”

A shaky breath was Hannah’s only reply.

With a boldness she hadn’t realized she possessed, Isobel ran her hand up Hannah’s leg until she found the ribbon at the top of her stocking. She pulled it loose and rolled each stocking down.

The ties and laces and hooks fell to Isobel’s touch and the dress pooled at Hannah’s feet in a moment. Her breath was short, unused to the confines of the corset and the touch of another. As her corset fell open and Isobel dropped it to the floor, Hannah reached, without thinking, to untie Isobel’s robe so that they both might breathe.

The air between them crackled now as they inched closer together, hands shyly hovering. Hannah spoke first, unable to wait a moment longer. “May I kiss you?”

Isobel smiled, her answer a relieved and hungry, “Please.”

Kisses, when words no longer suffice, speak the body’s wishes. This kiss spoke of impossible hopes, of defiant desires, of belonging. She had met her and known: I am yours.

Whatever uncertainty guarding their movements before their lips met began to swiftly subside to an instinctive assurance. Their hands slid from cheek to neck to back to hip until they’d become dizzy on each other’s breath and every place touched felt alive as never before. Both had been hidden under clothing and distance for their entire lives and to be touched with such reverence and desire startled slumbering emotions in them.

Isobel pulled Hannah’s body fully against her own and sighed into her neck, kissing the spot where her neck and earlobe met. She wanted to find words to tell her how she’d imagined this moment a thousand times but never dreamed it would be real. How, more than anything, she felt profoundly happy in a way she never had before.

The words halted by her own unexpected gasp as she felt Hannah’s fingers working the buttons on Isobel’s gown, opening the neckline and hooking her fingers under the fabric to brush it over her shoulders until suddenly her body was bared to her. The cool air of the room rising bumps on her skin until the heat of Hannah’s hands smoothed them over, palms slowly traversing the curve of her hip to her waist, her thumb pressing lightly against her navel. Hannah’s fingers circled Isobel’s breast and she let her palm glide over the nipple. Their breaths grew ragged, punctuated with sighs and increasingly desperate sounds, needing more.

Isobel pulled at the tie holding Hannah’s shift together and brushed it to the floor. She grasped Hannah’s hand and led her to the bed, pushing the blankets back and easing herself back, expecting Hannah to follow, but finding her frozen, halfway onto the bed, staring with dark eyes that traveled over the length of Isobel’s body until they met her eyes again. _What beauty we hide from the world._

Hannah eased onto the bed and pressed her body against Isobel’s, their legs twining with no hesitation, hands pressing greedily into flesh and pulling closer still, mouths seeking clashing teeth and tongues and moans they did not hear. The want for touch, after starving for it, was almost too much for either to bear.

Isobel’s hands found Hannah’s breasts and her mouth soon followed, marveling at the softness of the flesh, the tightening of the nipple as Isobel’s teeth grazed across it. What exquisite pleasure to draw these sounds from her. To learn the ways of another’s body and find it arching toward her touch.                                                                                              

She smelled her, the arousal wet against her thigh, and felt her own in response. She moved her hips over, straddling her and pressing Hannah’s legs apart. The first touch of her fingers was maddening and not enough and Hannah soon had pressed her own hand over Isobel’s. “More.” A plea. Her fingers moved inside her and found a place she never wanted to leave.

As Hannah’s body shook around her, Isobel knew the answer to her questions of love, of the requirements of time and knowledge. Here, she knew. The most vulnerable, desperate pleas, drawn from bodies, demands love to fill the spaces between kisses and cries. Between nightmares and fleshly delights is a space made only for love. It is a choice to give her that. It will not happen of its own accord. When their breaths slow and their heads sink into pillows, the choice of love waits.

Isobel could not have imagined what it would feel like when Hannah’s tongue fell upon her, pressing in and up and around. How it would send a wave through her body that reverberated like the cries of birds through valleys. How she would shake for minutes after her body shattered and it would only be when Hannah kissed them away that she’d notice the tears that slid down her cheeks.

She lied awake well into the night watching Hannah sleep beside her, wondering how her dreams could fall so short of her reality.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John returns from London with news that is not well received.

Isobel gently pushed the purple hydrangeas aside and leaned to her right, bracing her hand against the shutters. A fine dusting of pollen coated the windows and she ran her gloved hand across to clear it. Through the milky glass she saw a blanket haphazardly thrown over the back of the settee upon which sat a book, propped open with a candlestick, of all things, as if the reader had left hastily. A half-empty tea cup and the discarded pit of a plum left upon a small table. No sign of movement in the hall. No drifting shadows in the kitchen beyond.

Rather than wasting time calling through a house she was quite certain was empty, Isobel followed a stone path around the outside of the cottage until she reached the fence. The gate, still broken and tied with twine to the post, rattled in the breeze. She swung it open and re-tied it behind her, following the informal path of trodden grass through a poplar grove and past two more cottages until she found what she sought.

Isobel watched her for a moment, haloed by the lowering sun. Brown curls stuck to her damp neck as she dropped a handful of carrots into her basket then straightened, stretching her back and rolling her neck.

“I have been told there are woodland sprites around these parts.”

Hannah turned slowly, her lips twitching to contain a smile. “Who told you such a thing? We sprites do not take kindly to gossip.”

“I can obtain all manner of food for you, Hannah. You needn’t resort to pilfering the gardens of the elderly village-folk.”

“ _This_ is remittance. Compensation for my hours of assistance in bathing Mrs. Wilford.”

Isobel curled her fingers around Hannah’s arm as they walked back to the cottage. Their steps through the long grass left a a wake of dandelion seeds in the warm light of dusk.

“Has she warmed to your efforts?”

“She has not only failed to warm, but has somehow acquired even more curses. I had imagined one would have a complete arsenal by the age of eighty, but I suspect she is paying neighboring farm boys to teach her the newest curses. She’s devoted to her craft, I will say that.”

“ _You_ are a saint.”

Hannah tied the gate and upon entering the dim cottage, set to lighting the kitchen and stoking the fire. She moved about the room with practiced ease, lifting kettles without a glance, heel nudging a water bucket a few inches over so she wouldn’t trip when moving food from the fire.

Isobel laid out the pies she’s procured from the Helwater kitchen and marveled at this space they occupied. Three years they’d lived this, John’s impossible scheme. She would have done anything for him in return for that one night, but the wheels began to turn and within a month he’d secured a cottage in a nearby village, routing money to obscure his interest. Hannah, his distant cousin who wished to devote herself to an austere and charitable life, would move in and care for the poor and elderly, with his blessing.

She’d watched her husband and her lover grow a strong, silver bond between them, trust the only means of survival. He teased Hannah about her haphazard style of fashion and she teased him about nearly anything, just to watch his face redden.

Isobel stood behind Hannah and wrapped her arms around her until she felt Hannah’s body relax into her own. It always took a few moments, a tentative reacquaintance. Hannah’s head fell back on Isobel’s shoulder and they both sighed through their smiles.

“Where is our John?”

“He is en route to London to see a friend.”

“Hm. What kind of friend?”

“A particular friend.”

Hannah’s shoulders shook in silent laughter. “My favorite kind.” She turned in Isobel’s arms and let her head fall against hers, the tips of their noses nudging playfully. They loved this, the sweet luxury of feeling the other one so near. And also, dancing with the sweetness, the jittery anticipation. Holding themselves back just a bit, mouths moving just out of reach, until one of them finally caught the other, claiming. Tonight Isobel won, holding Hannah’s lower lip between her teeth, drawing her tongue across the edge of her lip, curled under like a cresting wave.

They relish this hour when the light falls below the horizon and the shadows slowly swallow everything in their path. The room is turning the deep blue of night when Isobel pushes herself up from beneath the blankets and begins to dress. She remembers the night she first lied here with Hannah, when she first learned Hannah’s story.

_“You know nothing of your mother?”_

_“Nothing. She died birthing me. And my father broke with her loss. He did not know how to manage me, this squawking infant. A neighbor woman kept me for two years and then he began bringing me with him to work the gardens. He called me George. I was never anyone else to him._

_“He taught me, cared for me as best he could. But when I began to understand I was not a boy, I was angry. I don’t think I understood why exactly. He only ever said he wanted to protect me. And for a long time I thought he meant he didn’t want me to end up in a place some women do. But I think beneath it all, he thought maybe he could save me from dying like she had. If men didn’t see me as a prospective wife, I could not die birthing their children.”_

_“Do you wish he hadn’t hidden you?”_

_“No. I would wish no moment of my life away. I would not risk losing this outcome. To find you, to have even just that one moment with you in the shed, I would have lived bound and hidden and been grateful for it.”_

_Love without risk is no love._ Isobel had written it down when she returned to her empty room after that night. Had stared at the words and felt her heart stretching until the tissue began to tear. Until she had curled into herself in her bed and searched her mind for courage, for the piece of herself she’d throw to the wolves if it meant love lived for another breath. And in the moment before sleep claimed her, she felt her spirit bellow, naked in the valley of her soul, that love would only claim the brave.

* * *

 

John’s return from London, three weeks later, was celebrated by all. His presence at Helwater imbued the place with a liveliness the Dunsany family alone did not possess. William, in particular, was thrilled to have him back. His spirit was still defiant as ever, and a good deal louder, but he also possessed a smirking self-assuredness that spoke to his parentage.

John found Isobel one afternoon, watching William ride in a field behind the stables.

“Does he mind the audience?”

She smiled, but did not turn to him. “I don’t think he considers my presence worthy of consideration.”

“That is certainly untrue.”

“I sometimes feel like Geneva is watching me through him.”

John fidgeted next to her. Isobel’s mood was far dourer than he’d expected and he wavered for a moment. His news was not entirely unexpected. They’d talked of their future, though, he would admit now, it was often in vague terms, and not nearly as ambitious as what he was about to tell her.

“I took some meetings in London that proved quite interesting.”

She turned to him finally and her troubled expression gave way to a sympathetic curiosity. Isobel was especially good at sensing his unease and she drew him close, looping her arm through his.

“‘Interesting’ is something of a harbinger of upheaval with you, I’ve found, John. And not nearly as ambiguous in its intent as you might wish. What matters trouble you?”

“I will not say you are wrong, my dear. Upheaval is apt, but I do not find myself troubled. In fact, I might say my spirit is enlivened.”

She squeezed his arm. “Well, now I am deeply concerned.”

“I do not expect you to meet this prospect with my enthusiasm, but I hope you will consider it a new beginning, of sorts. I have been appointed a governorship.”

Isobel’s arm dropped and she searched his face, looking for something to hold onto, as she felt herself losing her footing. A wife pulled in her husband’s wake. “The colonies?”

“No, West Indies. Jamaica.”

A world away. A door closed behind her and before her lay only the vast unknown of oceans, sand, and lawless pirate menace. Her stomach curdled and bile rose in her throat suddenly, her life constricting into the truth she’d kept locked away the day she married him. That she became his that day. Her future his to determine. He had given her so much - more than she could have dreamed - and yet she hated him.

Hannah.

“John, I -”

“We will bring her. I’m sure we can find a suitable arrangement.”

Her eyes drifted shut and she tried to conjure the image of Hannah in such a place, in the stuffy confines of the governor’s mansion, under the shifting eyes of strangers.

Her voice was thin, a wisp of dandelion fuzz. “She won’t know the plants.” Tears stung Isobel’s eyes and she dug her fingers into the fabric of her dress, willing calm into her being when all she wanted was to run. To find Hannah and lock the door of that cottage and never come out.

* * *

 

Isobel’s lips were squeezed so tightly against the needle, they’d gone white. Hannah smiled and held back her laugh. She wrung the bathwater out of the cloth and draped it over the edge of the basin, wrapping herself in dry linen. “I wish I could paint this moment. You, with your brow furrowed in concentration.”

Isobel ignored her and pulled the needle from her mouth with fingers tangled in fabric. “Well then I am glad your talents lie in flora.”

“Only there?”

Despite her best efforts, a blush rose along Isobel’s neck and she pointedly refused to look at Hannah, who surely wore a smug expression.

“Stop trying to distract me. I’m nearly finished and I do think I’m no longer the very worst mender in the land. I shall prove myself useful. You’ll see.” Hannah dressed as Isobel finished, holding the dress up and meekly smiling at her work. “If you don’t stand too close to anyone, I think it’s quite acceptable.”

“I do so appreciate your efforts, Isobel, but I am afraid there are no other tasks to assign you. And your eagerness to suddenly learn the ways of domestic drudgery is highly suspicious, so I think perhaps it best you deliver your damning news and be done with it.”

Isobel settled on the edge of the bed, entwining her fingers with Hannah’s. The pale freckled skin of her own, flawless and smooth. Hannah’s tanned skin a network of abrasions from thorns and thistles and splinters. “John is to be governor of Jamaica. He sails for the West Indies next month.”

Hannah spoke, voice barely above a whisper. “Will you accompany him?”

Isobel squeezed her hand. “ _We_ will. I will not leave without you, Hannah. John has assured -”

She moved so quickly, Isobel hardly registered her absence but for the air cooling her palm. Hannah had fled from her, flinging herself into the corner of the room, chest rising and falling rapidly, a sheen on her reddening skin.

“Hannah, what - “

“- I can’t! Please… I can’t go. I can’t go.”

This distress grew from somewhere deep inside, a place Isobel had not seen. Hannah’s fear moved through the room like a ghost, shifting the air and permeating the space with her desperation.

“Hannah, I will not leave you.”

Hannah’s voice shattered the space between them. “No! You _will_ leave me. You must! I can’t go with you!” Tears streamed down her face, twisted in agony.

Isobel’s lungs felt paralyzed, drawing in tight breaths. Seeing Hannah lashing out in the corner and hearing the terror in her voice cut through her. Tears sprung to her eyes and she felt herself bound, a prisoner of circumstance. “Why, Hannah? Why can’t you go?”

Hannah’s face changed. She looked small, so young. A child pressed into the shadows, willing herself invisible against the monsters. “Because I will die.”

“Why do you think you’ll die?”

“The sea will take me.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter - John, Isobel, and Hannah face their future.

Hannah’s legs trembled beneath her and she let herself slide to the floor. The shame of the outburst heated her skin and she buried her face in her hands, waiting for Isobel to leave. The broken child had burst through her and shattered the quiet fantasy.

The air next to her shifted. Isobel’s skirts brushed against her legs as she settled on the dusty floor next to her.

“Tell me.” Isobel gently pried Hannah’s fingers away from her tear-stained face and wrapped her hand in hers. A ghost of a kiss against her hand.

Hannah spoke through shaking breaths. “I was born with a caul. My father kept it in a small box and he would show it to me and say ‘You are protected. Your mother gave this to protect you when she could not.’ He cherished it, put all his faith in it. When I was older, when I learned that he had lied to me about who I was and I was angry and confused, I threw the box into the river.” Her breath shuddered, a whimper falling from her trembling lips.

“Hannah -”

“I didn’t know. I just knew he cared about that caul so I threw it away. But I didn’t know what it would mean to lose it. He was so upset. But then his anger turned to grieving. He was grieving me, standing alive before him. All his efforts to protect me I had tossed aside in a fit. He died years later grateful that he didn’t have to live through watching me drown.”

There were no suitable words for Isobel to speak. No reassurance that would counter the crippling fear wrapped in guilt. In truth, death stalked ships. The deep, raging sea below. The stewing cauldron of illness that cut through crews. Pirates. Madness. Hannah might die of fright before the sea ever touched her.

“I will plead with John. I will try…”

* * *

 

Hours later, nestled in the cavernous bedroom in Helwater, Isobel woke from a dream coated in the salt of the sea. In her dream she’d searched the cabins of the ship in a frantic panic. Each door opened to the rough sun-baked skin of belligerent sailors, lascivious leers and filthy fingers reaching. The entire ship a creaking, heaving nightmare.

Isobel stumbled to the stern, feet slipping on the wet boards, her fingers digging into the worn wood rails. There, in the ship’s wake, was Hannah’s petticoat growing heavy with water and disappearing into the horizon. Her limbs moved of their own accord and the fall through the salty air was not a fall. The earth turned on itself and she flew to the sea, an arrow shot through the blue. An escape. A rescue. A disappearing. The water swallowed her and took her to Hannah, drifting naked, fingers caressing a coral garden.

_The world will not have us._

Isobel woke choking on sea water and extracted her feet from the tangle of sheets, expecting them to sink into sand when she swung them to the floor. She shuffled blearily to the desk and put ink to the paper.

_Love favors the brave, but it spares no one. It shuns the well-worn trails and pulls the aching heart through brambles._

* * *

 

**3 Months Later**

 

John’s fingertips traced the edge of the letter, a featherlight touch around the words. The last candle snuffed out. Loss was no more than shadows overcoming the light lining a canvas. The brush of paint that was once the cherubic child in its mother’s arms, in the darkness becomes an ill-defined smudge, a reflection off the oil showing only ourselves staring back. It was an unfathomable cruelty to deliver the news of death. _My beloved._

He’d fantasized about not telling her parents at all. They’d said their goodbyes, knowing them likely final, when she departed for the port. A dress rehearsal for death. He couldn’t imagine they were emotionally wrought as their remaining daughter embraced them one last time. Formal, sincere, reserved. Isobel had confided in him once that she did not feel a great tether to her parents. Their love was made of iron and glass, for structure and strength and visible only as much as was needed.

William leaving with John, that was the test. The great pressing weight of the family’s legacy stealing their stoicism and rendering them limp with frailty. It would undoubtedly be good for the boy, to see a world so unlike his own kingdom. For he did feel himself something of a ruler. He would learn otherwise over the careless waves of the ocean.

In the governor’s mansion John kept a chair by his desk, used only by William, who had become his companion in the evenings. Every paper he signed, every exasperated sigh, was a moment for him to teach. To give William a piece of his father’s humanity, the humbling knowledge of leadership.

_“Will he die for the crime? Does not the law demand it?” Willie’s confident tone was betrayed by the softness in his eyes, a bent toward compassion that John sensed lingered under the hardened layers of class and structure._

_“Laws are creatures of their habitat. They are harmonious when in their natural environs. When brought elsewhere, it can be like releasing an alligator on a mountain. It can try to fulfill its purpose, but ultimately, it will prove unsuitable. So, while I must uphold the law, I must acknowledge its inadequacies as well.”_

_“So, he will not die?”_

_“He should not. But he will. And I must work to change these laws to fit this place.”_

She was meant to follow. She was to arrive on the shore and he would place flowers in her hair. But she didn’t step from the ship. Nor did her ghost. She was lost to the world.

* * *

 

**Four years later**

 

The streetlamps were just being lit as John exited the carriage. His shadow wobbled in the flickering light over rain-slick cobblestones. A mist continued to fall in the heavy evening air, chilling his nose and fingertips and making the prospect of a warm room even more attractive after his journey. He had not sent word of his visit, having been uncertain himself if he’d make it to London this time. His hand rose to rap on the door and met only air.

“Good evening, sir. What a lovely surprise.”

“I hope you’ll forgive my presumption in showing up unannounced. My travels of late have been poorly structured and I hardly know where I am most mornings as it is.”

“It has been far too long, sir.”

He grimaced at the mild chastisement. It was true. He’d spread himself across continents and gave too little to satisfy anyone. How had his life become discombobulated? He had imagined age would erase surprise, that routine would color his sky, but somehow he found himself bouncing between homes, chasing mysteries.

She ushered him in to the house, silent save for the crackling of the fire in the sitting room, and the light click of heels upon the wood floor. He looked past the housekeeper’s shoulder and his heart clenched at the sight of her chewing her lip in nervous excitement.

“We could have planned a proper celebration, you know. To welcome you. Cakes, fine wine, string quartet. But you sent no note.”

“Catching you unawares is so much more interesting, though. May I beg your forgiveness?”

She stepped forward and extended her hands to him. Kisses to one then the other, his sparkling eyes teasing. She took another step and drew him to her, embracing him. She sighed and spoke against his neck. “It is good to see you, John.”

“Is there really no cake then, Hannah?”

He yelped from her pinch and spun his head around to make sure it had not been witnessed. He turned back to Hannah and marveled at her youthful face. Her eyes that held the wildness of a child still in them.

“You look well, and content, I hope.”

“More well and more content than I look.”

“Where is she?”

“Where she always is.”

He followed her up the narrow stairs to the last room. He could see her bent over her desk, glasses perched on the end of her nose. Two candles framing her, the wax cascading over the sides, nearly burned through. “Is someone come calling, Hannah?” she said without looking up from her paper.

“Yes, you have a gentleman caller, my dear.”

Her attention finally diverted, she pushed herself away from the desk and threw herself into her husband’s arms. “John! This is entirely unacceptable for you to show up unexpectedly and throw my heart into a panic. Tell me you are well. And tell me of William. Tell me all.”

“I will, if you’ll share your latest works with me.”

* * *

 

 

Jamie swung the bag over his shoulder and groaned as he bent to pick up the package that had fallen out. The ride for provisions had been fraught with rain and biting flies and an ornery horse. The smell of the smoke from the chimney filled him with a calm, a welcoming buzz that tingled over his skin at the prospect of seeing Claire.

She found him first. Dropping her basket, she gathered her skirts and ran to him. Her hands played over the grimy skin of his face, feeling for his solid presence, remembering him through her fingertips. “Welcome home.”

The night descended on the ridge after food and bathing and making the rounds of all the well-wishers. Jamie collapsed on the bed, limbs spread, feet dangling off the end. “I may no’ have the strength to get into the bed properly.”

“Two pillows for me then.”

“Hmmph.”

Claire finished brushing her hair and nudged the bag of goods Jamie had left on the floor. He’d removed the food and materials earlier, but there were still a few things weighing it down. She pulled out a small package, no bigger than her hand, wrapped in paper and tied with string.

“What is this?”

Jamie’s rolled his head to the side and squinted. “Oh, John had sent some books for me some months back. I suppose that must be one of them.”

“Do you mind if I open it? I’d love to read something new.”

“Aye, It’d make me verra happy if ye’d read a bit to me now. I’ve had naught but my own thoughts the last two days.”

She unwrapped it and found a small book of poems. “Viridi Vitam, Volume 1, by I.J. Hannah.” Claire flipped through the pages carefully, looking for one to catch her eye. One fitting of the moment. “Ah, here. ‘ _Vines_.’”

 

_Am I grown so weary of chiseled stone and oiled canvas_

_That only the verdant green vines that twist and curl_

_Send my soul alight?_

 

_I wake and taste sap dripping from the tree onto my tongue_

_And swallow whole the chestnut you pluck from above_

_To feel it settle in my belly._

 

_I wrap my limbs in your vines tracing my veins,_

_Chasing my blood to its heart, thundering through my chest_

_For the return of you._

 

_I throw stones against the walls of the halls to hear them echo_

_And remember how your voice faded as the vines withered_

_Against the blistering sun._

 

_The water came, rushing wild through the grass_

_And carried us not to its depths, but to this island named Our Own_

_Where we grew together._

 

_Your vines snaked through mine and burrowed under my green skin_

_And grew leaves upon my head and buds in my eyes_

_Until we became one green life._

 

* * *

 


End file.
